Tuesday, November 3, 2009

So far, it hasn't been the best of weeks. After a particularly acerbic morning, I went to the food co-op to shop for marinara ingredients. My mom is coming to town tonight, and in preparation for dinner on Wednesday, I'm cooking the family tomato sauce recipe because "spaghetti with tomato sauce" is her all time favorite dish. The recipe is one that my parents perfected through years of eating spaghetti basically every Monday and Friday night. Monday nights, they ate sauce from a jar (it was also, without fail, my night to do the dishes). Friday nights, they went to the local greek italian restaurant in the strip mall across the street from my high school. Every week, the owner, "Papa George," greeted my parents with an exuberant hello and tilted his head back to peer at the whole family through his thick glasses. Eventually, my dad asked "Papa," as we called him at home, to divulge the secret to his tomato sauce. Papa was more than happy to go over the list ingredients, although I'm guessing he left out a thing here or there because it never quite tasted the same at home.

At any rate, I was standing in the co-op near the avocados, checking my list, when I heard a little boy say, "Mommy why are you so dramatic??"

His mom said, "Why am I so dramatic?" She paused. "Because grandma made me that way!"

It made me laugh out loud and was enough to carry me through the rest of my shop without getting sucked back into the mental bog that accompanied through the sliding glass doors.